Jeb Stuart

“ John Stuart's face brightened a little at the information, and he said that he was very glad to hear it. Sir Horace bade his chauffeur drive home, and himself hailed a taxicab and drove to the house in Half Moon Street.
The prince set out for the palace, wearing a melancholy air, but he was conscious of an excited expectancy that he had not felt for several months at the prospect of meeting a lady. The Princess Anne had awakened in him an uncommon interest in the Princess Frieda. ”

“ Every eye rose from the savory and regarded him. On the instant, the hectic gayety of Sir Horace was to the fore, and he was facetious. John Stuart ignored him, following the first weighty remark with another. He was started; he went on. Every one was listening to him, all ears. It encouraged him. A scowl, the royal ferocity of which the prince himself could never hope to emulate, crushed Sir Horace, attempting again to be facetious. Presently the Earl of Oxenham said a few words in agreement with the ripe English sentiments falling from John Stuart's lips; the aunt of the prince did the same. ”

“ At noon that day, John Stuart, attended by Sir Horace Cheatle, went to pay his respects to the Princess Frieda. The prince's stern aunt had bidden him go, and she was no less surprised than delighted by the docility with which he obeyed.
John Stuart went with an easy mind, assured of his intellectual superiority to any woman and relying on the tact of Sir Horace to help him deal with the social side of the affair. ”

“ John Stuart paused, considering; he wished to be quite fair. Then he added:
“But we must not blind ourselves to the fact that, though the North is the industrial heart of England, and modern English politics come from Manchester, London is its political heart—the Houses of Parliament.”
“Ah, yes,” the princess repeated.
“You must see them at their best. I know of nothing more exhilarating, more thrilling, than a full-dress debate. It is my favorite form of recreation. I could do with one every afternoon—every night!” ”

“ Alluding to the discovery, James says, (letter to Sempil, 23d January, 1744,) that it made “a great noise, as you may believe, here,” viz. at Rome.—Stuart Papers.
[796] About this time, if we may believe the accounts of the Stuart party, the spirit of Jacobitism was widely diffused in Scotland. “The violentest Whigs,” says Mr. John Stuart in a letter to Secretary Edgar from Boulogne, in February, 1744, “are become the most zealous Jacobites. ”

“ He seemed most impressed by John Stuart's weighty converse, especially by the fact, which he learned from Sir Horace, that he had firmly impressed his views on the Mayor of Ledford.
“But this is perfectly splendid!” he cried at last, almost with enthusiasm. “If this fellow goes on boring people like this, I shall obtain a magnificent reputation.”
“It will certainly be a different one, your highness,” said Bletsoe, without enthusiasm.
“But it's quite all right,” said the prince. “You don't understand. These people never even guess that they're being bored.” ”

“ A man less staunch and loyal might have thrown over so profitless a service. He had talents that would have commanded a price in the Roundhead market. Yet staunchly adhering to the Stuart fortunes, labouring ceaselessly and shrewdly in the Stuart interest, employing his great ability and statecraft, he achieved at long length the restoration of the Stuarts to the Throne of England. And for all those loyal, self-denying labours in exile on the Stuart behalf, all the reward he had at the time was that James Stuart, Duke of York, debauched his daughter. ”

“ At Hammersmith Broadway, Sir Horace stopped the car, bade John Stuart never to leave his brother's house for longer than an hour at a time, in case the prince should suddenly need him, and stepped out onto the pavement. Then he bethought him to assure John Stuart that he would find his brother quite as sympathetic a listener as Sir Horace himself to sagacious views on the greatest crisis in the history of England. ”

“ Philip, reining in his restive horse viciously, read the offending lines, punctuating them with admonitory digs of his heels and tugs at the bridle as the charger fretted at the fluttering paper. He looked well on horseback, and the civilian, lazily leaning against a pillar, admired him, dangling sword, jingling spurs, and all. He folded the paper methodically against his knee and handed it back. "And Miss Stuart believed all that?" he asked quietly.
"Women always believe what they see printed. She is in an awful rage, of course; but I warned you, Marsden, you know I did." ”

“ Jovius also warmly commends a device worn by Edward Stuart, Lord of Albany, a famous captain of tried valour in the French army, during their Italian campaigns. Of the blood-royal of Scotland, being cousin to James IV., he wore, as his arms, a lion rampant in a field argent; and as his device, a buckle, with the motto, Distantia jungit; 'thereby implying that he was the bond which held united the kings of France and Scotland, to countervail the forces of their natural enemy, the king of England.'
A quaint bit of romance, in connection with a lady's device, is perhaps worthy of notice. ”

“ John Stuart started for Ledford in the high spirits of a man who has really come into his own. Both Sir Horace and Bletsoe went with him, and he was affable to both of them in a large, royal way. It was unusual for Bletsoe to travel in the same compartment with the prince. But the prince had bidden him travel in the same compartment with John Stuart lest Sir Horace should upset him by too many final, flustering instructions. ”

“ It's the work I'm thinking of, the hard work of acquiring so many new accomplishments.”
“But I have no accomplishments!” cried the prince in a horror-stricken tone. “I've always avoided accomplishments. You can't call fencing an accomplishment.”
“But there'll be the matter of etiquette,” John Stuart went on with unbending sternness, and again he gazed around with challenging eyes. “I'm a plain man——”
“Oh, don't say that! It reflects on me,” protested the prince in a pained voice.
“I'm a plain man, your highness,” insisted John Stuart, “the son of plain parents. ”

“ In thinking of old Edinburgh, as Mary knew it, our fancy naturally but erroneously dwells on the narrow wynds of the old town, cabined between grimy slate-roofed houses of some twelve or fifteen stories in height, ‘piled black and massy steep and high,’ and darkened with centuries of smoke, squalid, sunless, without a green tree in the near view, so we are apt to conceive the Edinburgh of Queen Mary. But we do the good town injustice: we are conceiving the Edinburgh of Queen Mary under the colours and in the forms of the Edinburgh of Prince Charles and of Robert Burns. ”

“ John Stuart had not recovered sufficiently from the shock of the shattering of his edifice to make an intelligible reply. Sir Horace came to his aid.
“It's a great pity that Prince Peter Augustus lets his touchiness grow on him,” he said in a tone of fine impartiality. “It was only a joke, and, after all, what is a joke?”
John Stuart took the cue. He said in his harshest voice:
“A man without a sense of humor is deficient.” ”

“ Sir Horace looked at John Stuart somewhat doubtfully.
“I'll try, highness,” he said. “But I—er—have a theory that tact is—er—that the tactful man, like the poet, is born, not made.”
“Perhaps—perhaps,” said the prince. “Bletsoe will show you the rooms you will occupy here, Mr. Stuart. But most of the time you will occupy my suite at the palace, I hope. You had better come to Sir Horace's house, 71b Hans Crescent, at half past ten to-morrow morning. I suppose you can arrange with your insurance company to leave at once, for your salary will begin as soon as all your time is at my disposal.” ”

“ They did not look bored; they looked like people endeavoring conscientiously to follow a sermon well above their heads. The leaders of the Daily Wire are strong meat.
It is likely that John Stuart would have continued to instruct and impress his patient audience till tea time had not the stern aunt of the prince interrupted him by rising from her chair. ”

“ Good morning, Sir Horace,” she began quickly, “I just ran in to tell you that you're in for a first-class wigging, Richard. It seems that you weren't satisfied with pulling all our legs at lunch yesterday, but went off to the club and pulled the leg of Peter Augustus. Why ever did you tell him that you would try to get him the post of triangle player in a street band? You know how touchy he is, and what a fuss he always makes about your damaging his royal dignity.”
“But-b-but I never——” gasped John Stuart, stopped short, and ground his teeth. ”

“ Of course, to-day this cult of the Stuarts is nothing but a fad. No one ever expects to see a Stuart on the English throne. But it is significant of the deep strain of romance which the six Stuarts who reigned in England have implanted in the English heart. The old Jacobite ballads still have power to thrill. Queen Victoria herself used to have the pipers file out before her at Balmoral to the "skirling" of "Bonnie Dundee," "Over the Water to Charlie," and "Wha'll Be King but Charlie!" It is a sentiment that has never died. ”

“ And yet in that imaginary name and title there may perhaps be found a key to the mystery of the birth of the young James Stuart. For though the Neapolitan adventurer was an impostor, he enjoyed good sources of information, and possessed, though imperfectly, the secrets of King Charles's son. He knew that he was born at Jersey, and that his birth had been recognised by his father, and he had secured some of his papers and some of his property. All the wealth he showed at Naples did not come from that source, for the young novice was not so rich, and the impostor must have robbed other people. ”

“ Stuart? I don’t know why, but I am sure she does not like me.”
“Margery”—and Stuart drew her back to him again and kissed her sweet lips—“we are pledged to each other, and none shall part us. Leave all to me, and it will come right. And now I have a lesson to teach you—henceforth I am Stuart, and Stuart only; don’t forget.”
“I will not,” she promised. She was silent for an instant, then said, softly: “How good you are! I will try to be worthy of you. Something tells me, Stuart, that I am not a common village girl. You will know the truth, perhaps, some day, and then you will be proud of me.” ”

“ In order to baffle the projects which rest entirely upon your highness, the usurper has given to Colonel Rutler the mission which came so near being fatal to you, your highness. You see, then, in all this Father Griffen has been perfectly innocent. Some one has abused his confidence most sacrilegiously; but, after all, sir, you must exercise forbearance, for it is to this discovery that you will have the glory, some day, of re-establishing James Stuart upon the throne of England. ”

“ It [Pg 376] seems possible that Stewart met Bothwell, when he was in Denmark, in the spring of the year, and induced him to arrange a conspiracy with his cousin, Patrick Hepburn. Before Hepburn was taken, the Lyon Herald, on August 2, fled to Dumbarton, where he was safe under the protection of Lord Fleming, then holding Dumbarton Castle for Mary. [408] The Herald ‘was suspecte of conspiracy against the life of the Regent, the Earll of Moray.’ He lost his place as Lyon King at Arms, and Sir David Lindsay was appointed to the office, held under James V. by his poet namesake. ”

“ John Stuart hesitated. He knew that a marriage between the prince and Princess Frieda of Scandinavia was in process of being arranged, that she was even now on her way to England; but he knew very little else about it. He must move warily. ”

“ Stuart from Kingston to the neighborhood of Grand River. Many of the Indians, he said, wished to be near a church where there should be a proper minister; and nowhere, as he thought, could one be found who would suit their dispositions so well, and exert such a desirable influence over the morals of the young people, as Mr. Stuart, who had been a missionary among them in the Valley of the Mohawk. "This good thing," he said in his letter to Sir John, "I know must be done by his Lordship, and through your kind interposition ”

“ In the year 1788 the poor prince, to designate whom as a ‘Pretender’ was so offensive to all Jacobites, died in Rome, on the night of a terrible anniversary for the Stuart family, the 30th of January. In all the London periodicals he was treated with courtesy, but his death moved London society much less than that of ‘Athenian Stuart,’ whose decease left a void in scientific and social companies. The funeral ceremony is detailed in brief common-places. ”

“ Stuart was a member of the New York bar, and the distinguished law firm to which he belonged was very proud of its junior member, and treated him with indulgence and affection, which was not unmixed with amusement. For Stuart's legal knowledge had been gathered in many odd corners of the globe, and was various and peculiar. It had been his pleasure to study the laws by which men ruled other men in every condition of life, and under every sun. ”

“ You are lying to me, sir,” she continued in a firmer tone. “There were brave men, experienced soldiers, with James. Would he be so base as to desert those who risked their lives and fortunes for him?” I shrugged my shoulders carelessly.
“Do not deceive yourself, madam,” I made answer. “Carry your mind back to the past. Hast James Stuart ever shown any consideration for others when his own worthless life was in danger? The man who could steal away from his palace by night, without striking one blow for his crown and kingdom, would care little what fate befell those who had supported him. ”